Tuesday, February 23, 2016

Summer Vacation?

Email written: 2/23/16

So this week was probably the most interesting week that I have had. We started out normal, but then Tuesday after the district meeting, Elder Troya started to complain about some back pain. He's kind of been dealing with it since last Thursday but has kept fighting through it. That is, until Tuesday. I went upstairs to get reimbursed, and another Elder stayed down with Elder Troya, and by the time I went back down, this Elder was on the phone with Sister Ayre (she's basically the mission nurse) and we were told to go to the hospital. But the hospital is in the northeast corner of Buenos Aires, and we are in the southwest corner, so 2 hours later of working through bus and subway systems we got to the hospital and they checked him out and told us to come back the next morning for an MRI. So, Wednesday we did the same thing and after his MRI and a few ours of hanging out with other missionaries, he got his results looked at. The doctor told him he has a broken disc. So we only kind of freaked out. We called SIster Ayre and she told us to meet with the mission doctor Thursday to get a second opinion. She also told me I need to become some sort of back doctor because this is my 2nd companion with back issues and now I'm basically an expert. Thursday the mission doctor told us he's no specialist so he would have to send the results to salt lake city and in the meantime, 2 days rest.

So since Thursday afternoon, we've been in the mission home! We have nice beds, air conditioning, peanut butter, and so much more! We are going to be here until tomorrow because the doctor in salt lake gave him 10 days rest, but Elder Troya is getting well enough that we can return to the pension. I had the opportunity to do divisions with the elders in the offices and with the assistants which were neat experiences. But that was only Saturday and Sunday. The other days we've just hung out here and studied and slept. I had a lot of good time to study and ponder a few things so at least some good has come out of staying here. We spent a lot of time thinking and talking about how we can help our ward here (because they have surely been a very special people) and we realized in the end all we can do is pray for them and develop more charity within ourselves and that's just not a principle here right now, but a principle for life. Because we can either complain and try to get out of our problems or we can prayerfully and humbly seek the ways to make us strong enough to keep going and to learn from these moments. It's been weird not being in the villa and I started to miss it. But tomorrow after our conference with Elder Bednar, it's back to the villa because transfers came in, but president wanted me and Elder Troya to stay together. The pictures show the difference between when an elder doesn't have a/c in his apartment but the mission home does. -Elder Steele